Education

Teaching about the Triangle Fire and related topics? Find selected educational resources, including lesson plans and online materials, as well as Triangle fire learning projects contributed by teachers and students here.

Andi Sosin updates this page about teaching about the Triangle Fire and related topics. Please contact her or access the Triangle Open Archive (for online capture of documents, photos, audio or video) to submit artifacts and share resources; we’ll spread the word!

Caroline Roswell from PS 229 in Woodside attends the annual 2015 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire ceremony in Manhattan with her 5th-graders, who wrote essays about the tragedy and donned period clothing to evoke the workers who perished in the 1911 fire.Image courtesy of the New York Teacher.

Let’s hear it for the youth! Two high school freshman are building a Triangle Fire informational website for the 2014 National History Day competition. Thank you Quinn Wandalowskiand Julia Thomas for remembering the Triangle Workers! Good luck! Click here to see their project website.

Want to be inspired??! Check out the video above of the wonderful folks at NYC’s very own Neighborhood School as they chalk, sing + call the names through the day of the 2014 Triangle Fire Commemoration!

BREAD & ROSES has published a new curriculum guide: The Great Strike, Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1912. Small Planet Communications, Inc., in partnership with the Lawrence History Center, has developed a comprehensive curriculum for teachers and students on the historic textile strike that took place in Lawrence in 1912. For copies and information, contact Lisa Lyons at Small Planet Communications, lisa@smplanet.com, 978-794-2201 ext. 2003.

TheAmerican Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), a group of occupational safety, health and environmental professionals offers resources regarding safety, including Napo, an animated character who educates about safety in the workplace.

The Triangle Fire: A Curriculum Guide. Washington Post Newspapers in Education. Type “Triangle Fire” in the Search bar. Interview with David Von Drehle with an activity about how important cutters were to the process of making shirtwaists (a 5MB pdf; worth the wait). Von Drehle also appears on C-SPAN Booknotes.

Social Science Docket from the New York and New Jersey State Councils for the Social Studies. Contains resources for teaching about Triangle.

Student Presentations and Projects:

Many schools and teachers have engaged their students with inquiry learning projects about the Triangle fire. Presented here are some of the projects submitted to the Coalition, including videos, audio plays, photos of artifacts, and written documents.

The students developed their oratorio through the Los Angeles Master Chorale’s award-winning “Voices Within” artists-in-residence program, designed to foster collaboration among students as they create and perform their own original choral works under the guidance of professional teaching artists. According to a review of the performance, “That the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was chosen as the subject of an oratorio, an event about which many of those the students’ age know nothing about, indicates considerable seriousness and is a welcome sign of an interest in grappling with critical historical questions.”

Northwood High School’s production of “The Triangle Factory Fire Project”

Students at Northwood High School, Huntington Beach CA, remember the Triangle Fire. We commend them!

“Northwood High School’s production of “The Triangle Factory Fire Project” unfolds a dark tale of social injustices, glaring safety issues in the Triangle Factory workplace and the desperate rally of women to get their voices heard. The play does not hold any character above the rest – every death matters, and likewise, every character matters.” -Claire Alkire

Congratulations to Molly Brambil, Megan Healy and Caitlin Yabroudy from Huntington Union Free School District on earning 1st place in New York State in the 2013 National History Day Competition senior website category for their outstanding historical work and high tech presentation of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and its impact on workers’ rights. They also earned the Best Entry on Labor History as designated by the American Labor Studies Center. The trio will next represent Huntington and New York State at the national-level competition to be held on the College Park campus of the University of Maryland in June.

Hope High School in Providence RI produced a costume play that is headed to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Juan Morel Campus Schools participated in the Centennial. Here is a newsletter written by the students.

Maribeth Whitehouse, a teacher at IS 190, Bronx, NY sent photos from an 8th grade class project that linked the Triangle fire to the HappyLand fire of March 25, 1990. She says “Although there are obvious differences between the two events, there are many similarities like building code violations, the impact on immigrant populations and the huge loss of life (especially young people).” Here are photos of posters and writing by two of the students in the class.

Maribeth and her students came to the Centennial ceremony on March 25, 2011.

Here is a picture of a poster they made to remember the victims.

Video projects:

Teacher Caroline Roswell of PS 229 Queens led her students in an inquiry project that took them to the Evergreens Cemetery, where they presented their reports and read garment workers’ contemporaneous accounts of the Triangle fire at the unveiling of a memorial to the formerly unidentified and now known victims, at the Longman Memorial, on April 5, 2011.

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Who We Are

The Remember the Triangle Fire Coalition connects individuals and organizations with the 1911 Triangle Factory Fire — one of the pivotal events in US history and a turning point in labor’s struggle to achieve fair wages, dignity at work and safe working conditions. Outrage at the deaths of 146 mostly young, female immigrants inspired the union movement and helped to institute worker protections and fire safety laws. Today, basic rights and benefits in the workplace are not a guarantee in the United States or across the world. We believe it is more vital than ever that these issues are defended.